


with no space left between us.

by bittertofu



Series: thirty-five ways he said 'i love you.' [19]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 09:25:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bittertofu/pseuds/bittertofu
Summary: His mind was all made up.





	with no space left between us.

**Author's Note:**

> a series of drabbles.
> 
> please don't crawl on top of someone who's just gotten stitches.

Murmurs woke him up. His throat hurt, his head hurt, his whole body hurt—so much, that all he wanted the moment he regained consciousness was to slip back into endless dreaming. He didn't want this, to _feel_ this much. Especially not pain. It wasn't like before, when pain was all he had to remind him he was alive; now, all he wanted was to quietly come to an end.

“...suspect you...wakes...incriminating...”

Akechi groaned, and the voice, a woman's fell suddenly silent. There was a sound of shuffling, and somebody took his hand.

“...Goro?”

That was unmistakably Akira. Akechi's heart raced, and a loud, erratic beeping flooded his ears.

“Stand back!” the woman's voice demanded.

“I—”

“Stand back, or I _will_ call for security.”

The hand holding Akechi's vanished. He reached for it, needed it, but it was nowhere to be found.

“K...Kurusu,” he croaked, struggling to open his eyes.

Why did his throat hurt so much? Why were his eyelids so heavy? He hated feeling this helpless, this weak. Not being in control of his faculties was always something he dreaded, since he'd inflicted such a fate on many before him and had been around to witness the results. What if, he thought with rising panic, the spell he'd cast on Shido had somehow backfired on him?

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. He just wanted Akira to tell him that everything would be alright.

More murmuring, and then the hand he searched so fervently for found him again.

“I'm here,” Akira whispered, lips pressed against Akechi's cheek. “I'm right here.”

The loud beeping slowed, somewhat. Akechi squeezed Akira's hand as hard as his strength would allow, which wasn't much. Still, Akira squeezed back. Another hand, which he assumed also belonged to Akira, found his forehead and smoothed back his hair.

“You're alright now,” Akira soothed. “You're alright.”

When Akechi finally forced his eyes open—it felt like ripping apart two glued pieces of heavy paper—the bright light was overwhelming. He closed them again immediately and turned his head away. Akira said something, and after a moment the light in the room dimmed significantly. The next time Akechi opened his eyes, the experience wasn't so painful. He searched for Akira before anything else, his chest tightening at the sight of him.

“Hello there,” he said, voice still grating, still harsh, still weak.

“Hey.”

Akira's smile, though soft, though small, was one of desperate relief.

Don't, Akechi thought, swallowing hard. Don't look at me like that. Don't be so happy to see me. Don't.

“Akechi.”

The woman who'd spoken before spoke again. Akechi struggled to glance over Akira's shoulder, saw Sae Niijima standing behind him. Her arms were crossed, but even she looked visibly relieved.

“When I got the call, I was shocked, to say the least. First, that you were so badly injured. Second...you listed me as your emergency contact?”

Oh, right, he had done that. She was the only consistent adult in his life without a criminal record, known or otherwise. Besides, he hadn't ever thought she'd actually need to be contacted. His shame only compounded.

Akechi did his best to smile, but he had no idea what the result was. He felt his face twitch, but perhaps that was all it did.

“Well, you seemed reliable,” he managed to say. “I didn't think a situation like this would ever arise, but if anyone had to be called in for me, I wanted it to be you.”

That made him wonder. He shifted his gaze back to Akira, whose eyes were downcast. Sae must have read the question in Akechi's eyes, because she said, unprompted, “Makoto told him. I couldn't exactly hide your condition from her. The moment he found out, he was here. He's...under suspicion, to say the least, so I wasn't sure that having him here was the best idea. But he insisted, and it's not like there's any solid reason to keep him away...”

“That's alright,” Akechi said. “I'm glad.”

At that Akira looked up at him, faint surprise arranged minutely in his features. If Akechi hadn't spent so long studying the subtleties of Akira's expressions, he might not have noticed it at all. As it was, though, he could read Akira's facial and body language as easily as he could read a book. After a moment, Akira smiled.

“I wouldn't let you wake up alone,” he asserted. Heat crept into Akechi's cheeks.

“He was hardly alone,” Sae commented, her heels clicking as she stepped forward. “In any case, I need to ask him some questions. If you could please give us the room...”

Akira scowled. “He's still recovering. Can't it wait?”

“I'm afraid not,” said Sae. “It's quite urgent.”

“It's alright,” said Akechi, cupping Akira's hand in both of his. “Wait for me a moment?”

Akira clicked his tongue, clearly upset. “I'll be right outside,” he promised. Left after casting Sae a disapproving glance.

Akechi did his best to sit up, despite Sae telling him to take it easy. He waved his hand dismissively at her, propped himself up on the mound of pillows under his head. He frowned at all of the _things_ attached to him—tubes going up his nose, an intravenous drip plugged into his wrist, three wires with soft pads at the end stuck to his chest and abdomen. Plus, his new stitching stung. He wanted to rip everything out, though he refrained. It wouldn't do to cause trouble for the hospital staff.

“Well then, Ms. Niijima,” he began once he was settled, “what can I do for you?”

She sat down beside him and leaned in close, careful to keep her voice low.

“I can't promise we aren't being monitored,” she said, pointing discreetly to the camera in the corner of the ceiling. Akechi nodded his understanding. “I reviewed the files you gave me. You understand what you're admitting to, don't you?” Again, Akechi nodded, slowly this time. “Even if we catch...him...you'll be facing years in prison—possibly the rest of your life.”

“I understand.”

“You're still willing to go through with this?”

He smiled at her, tilting his head a little in question. “This has been your case from the beginning. I'd have thought you'd be ecstatic to finally collar your criminal.”

Sae Niijima frowned at him, a little sadly, it seemed, though he couldn't be sure.

“I just find it hard to believe you've really done all this. You're just a child. Are you sure you aren't being forced to confess...? Trying to defend someone, or trying to fabricate a case just to make sure we catch him? If someone is threatening you...”

“No one is threatening me. I know what I'm doing. I know what I've done. If you've done as I requested, then that should be the end of that.”

“I have,” she said. “Everything you asked, to a T.”

“Then there's nothing more to discuss,” he said, “is there?”

Sae did not look satisfied. She folded her arms across her chest, leaned all of her weight onto one foot, then the other.

“Akechi...”

“I assure you, Ms. Niijima,” he said, quietly, quietly. “It's what I want.”

Sae Niijima sighed, pursed her lips together. Pinched her eyes shut. After a long moment, she opened them again and nodded, once.

“Understood. Then, I will oversee preparations until the time comes.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it.”

Without a further word, Sae exited the room. Almost as soon as she was gone, Akira reemerged. Akechi nearly laughed at how like an eager puppy he looked.

“You look as though I've been gone a long time,” Akechi remarked.

Akira hurried to his bedside, paused, and then crawled in beside him. He settled carefully against Akechi's stomach, and Akechi, a little surprised, hovered his hand over Akira's head a moment before finally brushing his fingers through Akira's curls.

“You _were_ gone a long time,” Akira said, so quietly Akechi wondered if he was meant to hear at all. “You were gone longer than I liked.”

And I'll be gone longer still, Akechi thought, biting down on his lower lip.

“I told you not to do anything stupid.”

Akechi laughed lightly, winced at how the movement bothered his stitches.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “I...miscalculated.”

Akira sighed against him, nuzzled into his abdomen. The heart monitor beeped wildly. Akira laughed. Scooted himself up so that he had Akechi, who'd slid down the pillows, pinned beneath him.

“You can't lie anymore,” said Akira, brushing his lips against Akechi's. “About your feelings for me.”

“What feelings?”

He tried to speak smoothly, as easily and as unbothered as Akira spoke, but his question ended in a squeak. Horrified, he reached behind him for a pillow and shoved it into Akira's face. Akira floundered a moment before ripping the pillow away and pinning Akechi's hands down to the bed. The grin Akira flashed at him made his heart go funny all over again.

“You sure are bold, treating a hospitalized patient this way,” Akechi said, mind scrambling for any excuse to get Akira off of him, any way to distract from the rapid beeping of the EKG. He was shocked a nurse hadn't come in to check on him yet. “This is harassment.”

It was truly amazing how evenly his words came out, considering he was screaming on the inside.

Instead of answering, Akira lowered himself nearer to Akechi and nearer, until all his weight pressed down on him. Even so, he was clearly being careful about putting too much pressure on Akechi's right side.

“I just got you back,” Akira murmured, centimeters away from Akechi's lips. “I'm not letting you go just yet.”

Akechi lifted his head a little, bringing their faces closer still. “I never said you should.”

Akira finally kissed him, gentle and slow, and warmth bloomed in Akechi's stomach at the feel of him. This time, he didn't entirely hate it. In fact, he maybe even enjoyed it.

In the back of his mind, he knew this couldn't last. This was a thing that didn't belong to him, had never, in fact, belonged to him. Akechi and Akira were doomed always to be on opposite sides of the same coin. The thing about two-faced coins, however, was that the faces never came into contact with one another. This fleeting thing between them, whatever it was, could only be that—fleeting.

So as he sunk into the pleasure of Akira's mouth, as he lost himself in the feel of Akira's body soft and flush against him, he made sure to lock away the part of himself that might ever really feel anything about it all. It wasn't hard to do. It was a part of him that had already been locked away for years and years and years. Burying it even deeper, killing it even faster, was as easy as killing the cognition with his same face.

Never look too closely at it, he told himself, even as he kissed Akira with such genuine want it blossomed into an ache. Never think too deeply about it.

If it wasn't real, he thought (lacing his fingers with Akira's, squeezing tight), then when it all came crashing down, the inferno wouldn't burn him, the debris wouldn't choke him.

“Goro,” Akira said into the breaths between their meeting mouths, “I love you. I love you, so don't you ever do that to me again.”

Akechi said nothing. He only kissed Akira all the harder.

 


End file.
